"Bisson, Terry - First Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bisson Terry)

drum with a long dipper of bone or ivory.
Clever, thought Emil. The flame is kept small. They don't have to haul twigs up
the mountain. Just oil.
He wondered if he had spoken out loud. The old man answered him, but not
directly.
"He says that in the temps perdu it was done with twigs," said Claude. "Then
they learned to use fat."
"Ask them how old the fire is," Emil said as he took out the time gun. The
Children's slight alarm turned to curiosity as they realized it wasn't a weapon.
"They don't have an answer in years," said Claude. "They say beaucoup. Many many
many."
"Ask them about the first men," said Kay.
"They were women," said Claude. "They call them the Mothers. They used no
speech, but kept the fire. For many generations, no words, only fire. Many many
many."
"Habilis," said Emil.
"Erectus," corrected Claude.
"Not likely," said Kay. "Fire might have been used by Homo erectus. But they
can't have been the ones to preserve it ritually."
"Why not?" Emil asked.
"Ritual implies language," said Kay. "Symbolic thinking. Consciousness. Even if
Homo erectus discovered and used fire, he couldn't have--"
"She," said Claude.
"She then," said Kay, who was unused to being corrected by men in matters of
gender. "She wouldn't have constructed a myth. Couldn't have."
"I told you, it's not a myth" said Claude. "It's a simple task. We are the ones
who contruct the myth. Sapiens. Homo sapiens sapiens."
"Whatever." Emil pointed the time gun at the tiny flame. He squeezed the trigger
until it beeped.
He read the display. Then he looked around the cave at the Children and his two
companions.
"Holy fucking shit," he said.
"Huh?" Kay. Claude.
"The flame is almost a million years old."
**
That evening they sat around a small campfire outside the cave and shared an
impressive brandy from the flask that Claude had brought with him, just in case.

"So it's true," he said, lighting his first Galouise since the Land Rover.
"More than true," said Emil. "It's positive."
"It seems impossible," said Kay. "Impossible and wonderful."
"I wanted to believe," said Claude, shaking his too-large head. "You hope. And
you hope not. The real world devours your expectations."
There were big tears in his eyes. He'd had two drinks for every one of Emil's
and Kay's. Emil was liking him more.
` Kay was on the cell phone, punching in long strings of numbers. "I told him I
would call," she explained.
Behind them, in the darkness, the Children went about their business. Nothing in
their world had changed. They had known all along.
**